You Were Not a Conquest

You were not a conquest. Yes, I looked at women that way. Yes it was wrong. No it’s not a compliment or an honor that I thought of you with human decency. But I did. You were never a conquest. You were never an achievement. You were a woman. You were a person. I loved you, and I love you. I knew you, and I wanted to know you. You were a whole person, and I loved all of you. I still love all of you. You were not a problem to solve, or a battle to win. You were not a prize. You are not. You’re a woman. You’re my beloved.

I treated you like a conquest, like a prize, like a possession. A lot of the time I did that. But that is not who or what I saw when I first laid eyes on you. I saw a person. A woman. I don’t deny mistreating you. I don’t deny any of the awful ways I looked at you, or thought of you at times over the years. But you were not a conquest. You were never a conquest. That is not what I wanted. That is not what I want.